September 21 through 28

[chochiyo_sama]

Wednesday, September 21

I got up early so I could get some work done before Hope arrived today.  I sorted through the stuff I set aside for the garage sale and marked all the stuff that I had not previously marked.  Once Hope arrived, she cleared off my desk and wiped it down.  Then I started going through all the stuff and getting the desk set up.  There is so much paper stuff to be gone through.  It took all day to do less than 1/3 of what needed to be done.  I put the shelves for me reference books on the desk and put some of the reference books that I use the most on them.  I had hope transfer my Barbie Bazaar magazines and some of my oversize craft and pattern books to the peach crate shelves where they will be handy and easily accessible.  Hope hung the portrait of Bastet that my former student Jessica brought me from Egypt when she was there for training while she was in the army.  I love that thing.  I had it professionally framed in Kasson, and it is beautiful.  She also placed most of my siblings’ wedding pictures back on the shelf above the couch in the living room.  I moved some of the pictures from the ugly frames they were into some prettier frames that had been on other pictures.  I have a couple of 8x10 pictures that need new and prettier frames which I will have to buy the next time I am in a store that sells frames. 

I briefly considered putting Kim’s wedding pictures away since she now despises me and I am a bit salty about it, but I decided she can be petty all by herself.  I don’t have to be a bitch just because she is choosing to be one.

Hope got a text message from her kids’ school while she was here saying that the school was aware of the “situation,” and that the school was in lock-down “just in case.”  It turns out that several schools in Minnesota were victims of a hoax where local police departments were called by someone reporting that active shooters were in a dozen or more schools and that there were multiple casualties.  None of it was true.  It gave us a scare since she has two kids in that school. 

Later in the afternoon, Lily brought over a pan of peach crisp which we ate with vanilla ice cream.  It was really good.  She also brought me two pounds of Hope butter (made at the Hope, MN, creamery) which she had picked up for me.  The creamery has been shut down for a couple of months as they had to repair a bunch of machines that had broken down then wait for some inspectors to come and examine everything to make sure it was all up to snuff.  Hope butter is the best butter of all time.  I have missed it while it was unavailable for over a month. 

On her way to my house, Hope had picked me up a six-pack of Diet Coke.  Now I am good for at least a week again. 

After everyone left, I worked on the office into the evening hours.  It was rather difficult as I had way too much “help” from the feline entities that share my home.

 

Thursday, September 22

Ugh.  What a start to the day.  When I got up to pee early this morning, I stepped in a puddle of nasty, juicy cat puke right in the bedroom doorway.  So, I cleaned that up.  Both the floor and my foot.  Then I cleaned the litterboxes in the breezeway and swept the floor. 

The Schwan’s man came today.  I am not used to him coming on Thursdays.  I had put in an order for Maple Nut ice cream (for my mother) and 3 meat loaf and mashed potato microwave single serve meals, a bag of citrus and herb cod fillets, a bag of butternut squash ravioli, and a seafood Spanish-style paella skillet meal.  The last three items are new to Schwans and sounded really good.  I have had the butternut squash ravioli before—in a restaurant—and it was delicious.  I hope this is just as good.

I ate some of the tomatoes Jason brought me on toast for “brunch,” and they were really good.  Tomatoes on toast with a little mayo is one of my favorite things in the world to eat. 

I worked a little in my office, but again, way too much interference from cats who insisted on climbing all over everything, knocking shit on the floor, and jumping up on my back and digging their claws into my flesh.  ARG. Annoying little bastards.  I do not know why I continue  to love them, but I do.

I tried to repair my little cowgirl knick knack that Lucas, the lazy, worthless, careless POS nephew, broke while he lived her.  It did not work.  I will probably have to just throw it away.

 

Friday, September 23

Even though I am pretty low on cash, I called in a small grocery order this morning.  I only spent about $50, but it bought me enough food to get me through till I get my next cash infusion on the 28^th. I had a pretty big bunch of dishes in the sink, so I washed them. 

Lily stopped by later and brought me a couple loaves of Italian bread, a jar of Helman’s mayonnaise, and a long necked squash.  She also picked up my mail.  When she left, I sorted through my mail and wrote out checks for three new bills.  I won’t be sending them off until closer to the new cash infusion.  I don’t want to bounce any checks.

Ross delivered my groceries, and it took very little time to put them away as there were not that many of them.  After that, I worked on the office again.  I was surprised by a gentle rain falling.  No rain was forecast for today—at least not that I knew of.  At some point in the afternoon, a squirrel came up on the deck to eat nuts.  The cats were obsessed with him.  Their tails were swishing wildly as they ran from one side of the big picture window to the other to keep him under constant supervision.  LOL.

I watched the movie Going Home on TV.  It starred Jan Michael Vincent when he was young and very handsome (as opposed to when he got old and turned repulsively ugly due to his extreme alcoholism).  What a sad transformation that was.  It also starred an aging Robert Mitchum as he father who was released from prison after serving time for killing his wife in a drunken rage.  It was a depressing movie.  There were really no good guys in it.  Everyone was a mess.  To pay his dad back for killing his mom, Vincent’s character raped Mitchum’s character’s girl friend who was the only decent person in the movie.  Stupid.

That’s about it.

 

Saturday, September 24

I filled my pill caddy this morning and took my Trulicity injection.  It made me feel nauseous and gave me chills.  I don’t know if this med is going to be worth it.  It has lowered my blood sugar, but every time I inject it, it makes me feel crappy for two days.  At least I only have to inject it once a week.  I have only one dose left, then I will have to shell out another $240 for four more doses.  It’s too fucking expensive.

I spent a good share of the day napping and wondering if I was going to puke.  I felt a little better after eating tomatoes on toast for lunch.  In the evening, I ate part of a can of Campbells beef and barley soup.  I could not finish more than half of it.  It tasted disgusting—sort of like a metallic taste.  I threw most of it in the garbage.  I was back to feeling nauseated and like I was going to puke. 

My brother Jack took my mother to Austin for her cousin Dee’s funeral.  She died in Texas, was cremated and shipped back up to Minnesota.  She had dementia really bad.  Poor thing. 

I spent most of the day in my recliner.  I just did not feel well enough to do much.  I almost texted DeAnn and cancelled our Zoom meeting as I just didn’t feel like doing anything.  But I didn’t.

 

Sunday, September 25

My blood sugar was extremely low this morning—only 85.  It has not been that low in years.  It isn’t a bad blood sugar—70 is where they want you to be—but it is a lot lower than what I normally have.  I didn’t eat much yesterday, so I figure that was probably part of the issue.  I texted DeAnn and told her I needed to make something to eat before I zoomed due to the low blood sugar and needed about 20 minutes to do it.  I made fried eggs (over easy) and ate them with toast.  I think the protein helped. 

I wasn’t really “up” for a good discussion.  I had a headache and just felt sort of out of it.  DeAnn commented that I didn’t seem to be having a lot of insights today—she was having a lot of exciting (for her) insights.  I just felt sort of disconnected and weary. 

I enjoyed talking with and listening to her.  But I was glad when she had to go so I could go back to being a motionless lump on my recliner.  One of my favorite movies was on today—The Truth about Cats and Dogs, starring Janeane Garofalo, Uma Thurman, and Ben Chaplin.  It’s a really cute comedy.  I highly recommend it.  Janeane Garofalo is charming—a perfect choice for that character.  One of these days I have to search out more movies that she is in.

I made a little bit of progress on the office—not a lot.  It was a really lovely fall day.  Very sunny and pretty.

 

Monday, September 26

I felt much better today.  The effects of Trulicity seem to last two days then I go back to normal.  Perhaps a very long, hot shower is what helped me recover.  I had a pretty productive day.  I gathered the garbage, took it to the breezeway, cleaned the litterboxes, swept the breezeway, and added fresh litter to the boxes.  Then I went into the kitchen and worked for several hours.  I washed a lot of dirty dishes, cleaned out some old crap from the fridge, peeled and sliced the two cucumbers I had bought from Lerbergs and turned them into cucumber salad which was very tasty and refreshing, cut up, cleaned, and cooked the cauliflower, sliced up ½ of a large onion and fried it with the two ribeye steaks, and baked the two pork loin chops with the other ½ onion and two cans of mushroom soup.  Then I peeled the potatoes that I had left—6 or 7 of them—and boiled them.  I kept washing more dishes as I dirtied them.  By the time I had cooked, cleaned up, and stored all that stuff I was pretty exhausted.  I ate one of the ribeyes when it was done along with a little bit of the cucumber salad and a big bowl of the cooked cauliflower with butter.  It has been a while since I have eaten real food like that.  It tasted pretty good.

My brother Jack came over later and brought me a bag of produce from his garden—carrots, peppers, and the promise of an egg plant later.  He also got my TV remote to work.  The one I use for the living room TV was not functioning properly, and the other remotes for the other televisions should be interchangeable but I could not get them to work.  Turns out they WILL work—but they will not turn the TV off and on nor will they mute it.  So now I have to use the disfunctional remote to do those things but the other ones to change channels.  It’s weird. 

Lily stopped over while he was here and gave me a bag of cinnamon bears, a bowl of her homemade potato soup, a single raspberry bismark, and my mail.  Jack gave her some sweet peppers and jalapenos.  He took a bag of recycling out to my bin for me and dragged the bin out to the curb.  Lily stayed a little longer so I could teach her how to delete her emails and texts from her phone (again).  She does not retain that stuff very well.

Then we watched a news clip about Randi, Lily’s granddaughter, Rhonda’s daughter who is a librarian at an Elementary School in Austin, Tx.  She got a grant to do a project with the kids in her school where they wrote their own books and turned them into hard cover actual books. It was a great project.  She is a very smart girl.  Much smarter than her trumper parents.  I was proud of her.

I gave Lily my bills to mail—I figured they would not reach their destination and be cashed before Wednesday, which is when my social security will drop into my checking account.

After Lily left, I watched and deleted some random stuff off the DVR.  

 

Tuesday, September 27

Today I got all my laundry washed and dried and two loads folded.  I will fold the last load tomorrow.  Too tired to fold it tonight.  I worked on my office most of the day.  I am making good progress but there is no way that it will be done before Hope comes tomorrow.  I warmed up one of the pork loins with some of the potatoes and mushroom gravy for my lunch. It was really good.  I don’t remember the last time I had potatoes and gravy.  Probably at some family holiday feast.  For supper, I had a cinnamon raisin bagel with peanut butter. 

While working in the office, I wanted to watch and delete more stuff from the DVR.  The audio was working fine on the regular channels but the recorded stuff had no audio.  So I called my cable provider and they rebooted the system over the cable system.  Once that was done, it was fine and I watched and deleted several random programs. 

 

Wednesday, September 28

 

It was cold in the night.  I woke up early this morning to discover Sawyer pressed tight against my left side and William pressed just as tight to my right side.  I could barely move.  It felt very nice to have their fuzzy warmth snuggled tight to me.  My sweet babies.

Praise the Lord, my social security dropped today.  Hopefully my financial situation will return to normal now.  Hope came today.  She had Ember with her, but when Lily came back from her physical therapy she took Ember to her house.  That made it easier for Hope to work. 

I was working on the office when she got here and I continued to work there practically the whole time she was here. I got so much done.  I have discovered that I am almost out of page protectors.  I am going to have to order more as I have a lot of stuff that I need to put in them and file in three-ring binders.  I got everything done in the office except for one pile of paper stuff that needs to be sorted and filed.  If all goes well, I should be able to deal with that tomorrow. 

Hope got the whole house spiffed up, took out garbage and recycling, cleaned out some more old crap from the fridge, and even polished all the globe lamps with Windex.  I have six globe lamps.  I love them.  I always have.  I sent a box of paper printed on one side (left over from when I was teaching—stuff I had printed off for the students) along with a couple of pen/marker storage things that came from Bert’s  advertising office when he closed it up and some gel pens that I just didn’t like and a coloring book I used to make copies of for the after school program home with Hope for her kids.  Hopefully they will enjoy that stuff.

I asked Hope if she would run to Casey’s and pick up a pizza for us.  She did not want any pizza but said she’d take a piece for Ember, her daughter.  She was glad to do it.  So, I had pizza and cheese bread for supper.  I was really hungry as I had not eaten anything but half a granola bar all day.  I don’t like frozen pizza.  But I do get the craving for real pizza every now and then. 

Once Hope left, I was just too tired to go back into the office, so I made my grocery order and called it in.  Once again, I am getting a fairly small order—mostly produce.  I love fresh vegetables and fruits.  Once that little chore was done, I decided I might as well catch up with my DW entries again.  But first I did my written prayer journal and ate another piece of pizza.  I put the left over pizza and cheese bread in ziplock bags and put it in the fridge—there is enough left for at least three more meals.  Yay! 

While I was eating that last piece of pizza, I saw a little blonde haired kid zoom up my ramp and across my deck followed by a long-haired blonde young lady yelling, “No!  No!”  Then my door opened and the little tyke who looked about three years old burst into my living room only to be scooped up by the blonde lady who said, “Sorry!  Sorry!  Sorry!” 

So, I had a small home invader tonight.  I just laughed and said, “Don’t worry about it.”  She quickly scampered down the ramp and into the dusky sunset with the little tyke under her arm. 

I guess if one is going to have a home invader, a cute little tot is the best kind to have. 

Comments

[the_godiva]

That's the difference between you and me. I am that petty. I have already blocked her and S4B on my phone. They are cut out of my will and trust entirely. And after the funerals for my parents, I never want to see or hear their voices ever again.

If your cowgirl is resin no regular glue will repair it. I would suggest trying a two part epoxy. Gorilla makes one. If epoxy won't repair it nothing will. You'll have to surf eBay for a replacement.

Call your Doctor and tell her that the Trulicity is too expensive and you have nausea for two days after it every time and that is unacceptable. Ask her for more options and are any of them covered under Biden's new Medicare guidelines re: insulin.

I love that movie. She's more of a comic than an actress. I think the Truth About Cats and Dogs is likely the most well known one. She is 10 years younger than us.

Before I left my parent's house tonight I deleted a bunch of stuff from their DVR. I can watch Frankie Drake and some of the other shows on PBS or Britbox. I also canceled recordings for Frankie Drake, Bull (which is canceled) and Kenan (Which is also canceled but turns out no one watches. Good thing he still has his spot on SNL)

My parents are going on a cruise and I have many plans but one is that while I am going through cleaning and tossing stuff, I am going to try to find those trust and will papers, read them thoroughly and take scans of them with my phone. If necessary, I might contact my lawyer and ask him if he wants a copy and to discuss what to do depending on which of my parents dies first, what if anything can be done and how much it is going to cost. As far as alienating family, well that's already happened so no loss there. My sister has admitted she hates me, has always hated me and my brother's wife sent me six boxes of old soap my brother bought on sale when he was in Spain when he was in the Air Force. So, maybe 15-20 years old? She's not even trolling the bargain bins at Walmart any more or even regifting. She's just sending me crap from her spring cleaning she was going to toss in the trash.

We're going to Facetime next week for my Mom's birthday so I will delight in telling them that wow, that soap you sent is selling for $50 a box on Poshmark. Thanks so much. I'm going to have it right next to me so I can hold it up to show my brother what his wife sent me for my birthday.

I might actually put it on Poshmark for $40 a box and see if I get any takers. I'll never use it. Might also sell the glycerin stuff for $20 for three bars as that is the price I saw online. If I can sell both, well, that will go into my plumber's fund to upgrade that shower.

I'm going to be taking a lot of measurements too. What size handles to replace on the old kitchen cabinets prior to moving them back down into the kitchen. What size and placement of the shower and closet in my brother's room. Diagrams for reconfiguring the downstairs bedrooms and bath into an ensuite with a bigger door to both. Where to put the closet in the hobby room to make it into a bedroom.

I took a shower today and even my parent's shower doesn't work properly. The one control for the handset you have to fiddle with over and over to get the right temperature. The other side the control works fine but the shower head leaks and is just old and showing signs of corrosion. I would replace that shower head with a newer one. Then you could use at least half of the shower. I have no idea what brand those handles are so replacing them a problem. And whether the problem with the one shower head is in the valve or just the handle. I can't believe my Dad lives with that broken shit.